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Calculated Ambivalence

While pursuing a story about equivocation in high office, I was told, “He gave an if-by-whiskey speech.” My source, asked about his curious compound adjective, said he thought it was a Florida political expression possibly borrowed from a Minnesota Congressman. That triggered a call to Richard B. Stone, now a Washington banker, but a former U.S. Senator from Florida familiar with that states political patois. He immediately recognized the phrase, meaning “calculated ambivalence,” and provided the following anecdote: Fuller Warren, Floridas governor in the 50s, was running for office in a year that counties were voting their local option on permitting the sale of liquor. Asked for his position on wet-versus-dry, he would say:

“If by whiskey you mean the water of life that cheers mens souls, that smoothes out the tensions of the day, that gives gentle perspective to ones view of life, then put my name on the list of the fervent wets. But if by whiskey you mean the devils brew that rends families, destroys careers and ruins ones ability to work, then count me in the ranks of the dries.